I will never understand the compulsion that woman have for two things – ice cream and chocolate. Even in the dead of winter I have found myself wandering out my front door in the middle of a blizzard to get chocolate ice cream for Connie. The thing with both Connie and Tequila is that their were addicts to both. We hadn’t gotten five minutes down the road and Tequila remembered that we would be passing by a seaside ice cream joint and that it stayed open even in the winter.I sighed deeply and instructed the driver to stop when we got there.

It didn’t take long as our island country is only fifty miles long and twenty miles wide. We were there in fifteen minutes and I sighed again as we went inside. The place was warm and we were not the only ones there. We found a round table and sat at it with me between the girls. The waiter took our order. Connie – a bowl of chocolate ice cream. Tequila – a large fudge sundae. Me – one scoop of vanilla in a bowl. I ate in silence as the girls talked about the deserts. It does disturb me that if the three of us were on desert island and the choice was between saving me and the last pint of chocolate ice cream…well let’s just say they would be sad to see me go. The thing is this place has great homemade ice cream.

The social issues though reared their ugly heads as we were getting ready to leave. I took the bill and headed to the cash register and then someone recognized me. Now, I am not like super famous, but on a small island country the leading citizens tend to be known and I am a leading citizen in many respect although not by choice.

“Hey, your that Bartender from the capital. Are these two your wives?”

Now the clerk was a local so he didn’t give two dingo’s kidneys that I had two wives. He was libertarian like the rest of the citizens so whatever you do is fine with him but their were tourists present. The gasp that filled parts of the room was instant and I simply paid for our desserts and then taking a wife on each arm headed for the door. The glares at our back were physical. As we left, the clerk apologized and I told him it was all right. The incident did kill the mood a little.

I know people all over the island that do things different in their lives than most of our tourists would probably find offensive. We have very few illegal things or activities in the area of moral choices. The government warns and informs but does not criminalize a lot of things. As long as you respect the rights of others, you can do what you want for the most part. The irony is that our drug use rate is really low and crime is pretty low as well. We have no prison becasue if you commit a crime we handle it quickly and it is more likely that the the settlement will be about restitution rather than punishment. We have a few jails but they are never occupied long term and usually only by violent offenders. The only capital (death penalty) crimes are murder and rape. Yep, rape is a capital offense. Guess how much rape we have – very little.

Sexual issues involving ‘minors’ involve the two families getting together and hashing it out about what the hell is going on. The age of consent is 14 although we don’t prosecute teens who bang each other, we send them to sex education class and we have full sex education at age 10. We do prosecute adults who have sex with minors but we take into account the age difference. I mean a 15 year old getting horizontal with his 14 year old girlfriend is not going to be prosecuted but the parents might shoot you. If you are four years older than the girl or guy your having sex with and they are 14 or under you might find yourself either accused of rape or sexual misconduct and that will lead to you being exiled for life, assuming the parents don’t kill you first, and that is considered justified homicide. In short behave around teenagers or their parents have a licence to kill and we expect the parents to watchdog their children’s sexual behavior and not the state. The fact that everyone is probably armed makes everyone really polite around parents with underage teens.

I say all that to point out that we let a lot of things go, becasue most things are stupid to ruin people’s lives over by sending them to prison. We trust citizens to govern themselves. It also means that family relations are what the family makes them, not what the state allows. There are no marriage licences because the state is not involved in marriage. My marriage to Tequila was in space and was purely spiritual (and well physical). We get home, we set the legalities of our relationship with a lawyer and that was that.

But tourists have one problem, many have an attitude that they have some right to dictate terms to other peoples morals or conduct. They believe they have the right to tell others what family, society and economy should be for others. We don’t have that here, so it is hard for the average tourist to get over.

I hugged both my wives and they smiled at me and each other. It had been a great date up til that last moment and let’s be honest chocolate and ice cream trump prejudice and bigotry every time.

Welcome to All Things Rabyd, your friendly neighborhood ‘clothing optional’ theology pub. I, the Rabyd Theologian and your bartender, thank you for stopping by. Please drink your theology responsibly or have a designated driver to get you home. Please tip your waitress and they might give you a kiss on the cheek. Just remember life is short so enjoy it.

That reminds me of a fiction-series, which ran for several months in the Fig Leaf Forum, about a federation of boat-owners who lived and operated with a bare-minimum of laws and rules. Everyone was expected to “behave”, and what went on within a boat-owner’s designated territory was mostly nobody else’s business. Since it was in a tropical-climate, many boat-owners chose to make their place at least “clothing-optional”, and the prudes had no say in the matter.